In October I rarely updated a page about my preparations for this
year's novel, "Serious Injury or Death" (you can see it here). When I was writing the
book, this other page fails to document
my progress on actually writing
it.
Okay. It's done. 50,226 words worth. Without a doubt this was my least
satisfying effort to date, but I made it. I wouldn't have, either,
except for the encouragement of so many friends who refused to let me
lay down and quit and who offered not only pep talks but helpful advice
along the way and most importantly telling me that I was "missing the
point" of NaNoWriMo.
I had high hopes this year once I decided to participate. Unfortunately
for me November 2005 came at a low point in my life. Not only was I
forced to admit that my living goals and hopes weren't going to happen
and that I'd painted myself into a corner of misery, but I suffered the
departure of a good
and dear friend. I'm not one of the good writers who can set aside such
things, and I was unable to focus on my novel.
I hoped, or planned, or expected, that I could sit down like I had the
other years and discover a story. In years past, I don't know, I felt
I'd been able to tell an interesting one, to "engage the reader" and
all that crap, but this year I guess I never cared enough to even try.
I think in Hollywood they call it "phoning it in" when an actor just
repeats her or his lines and follows the blocking directions like an
automaton, and that's all I did this year. I just didn't care about my
book.
My characters never really came to life but what was worse was that
they were indistinguishable from each other. This year I tried to set
them up ahead of time, but I never referred back to my scattered and
vague notes. I'd hoped to create a good story, but I found myself each
day having no more of an idea of what to say than in the particular
paragraph I was writing at the time. I had no "real" story, nothing to
tell, and each day I'd simply leech onto whatever was going on and pad
out words to get the numbers.
I just wasn't prepared, and I was also uninspired.
I may take the title and see later on if I can write the book deserving
of it.
